Wednesday, December 17, 2008

This is the most inappropriately named radio show that ever was. It resides in misrepresentation, verges on fraud and remains on the air today. It was formerly syndicated on a few other gospel stations in the south but those times have passed. Today they only seem to be on WJOC-AM. The problem is that Grace is really Connie and Dale is really Jimmy and the real Dale and Grace have nothing to do with the program. Say what?In 1963, Dale Houston was playing piano in a country-western bar in Ferriday, Louisiana and was approached by Sam Montel. Sam Montel (a.k.a. Montelbano) was the owner of Montel records and signed Dale as a songwriter. He decided to pair up dale with a female vocalist named Gace Broussard who sang backups in a zydeco band.Sam took Dale & Grace to the recording studio and recorded cut 4 songs. Montel Records then released "I'm Leaving It Up To You" as a 45 rpm single. 1230 KNUZ-AM in Houston was an early supporter of the record and actually pressured Montelbano into leaving the recording as-in. Until then he wanted to re-record or overdub and re-press it. In October, 1963 it was the number one record in America. They played Dick Clarks program, toured.. it awas a big deal.

In 1965 Grace Broussard bailed on the duo. Dale picked up Connie Stattenfield to sing Grace's parts even using Grace's name. The Original Grace went on tour with her brother, who used the name Dale. Take this as a lesson. You have to extablish branding rights early on.

20 years later Dale reunited with grace Broussard. The 2nd Grace a.k.a. Connie Stattenfield went back on tour too, now with a guy named Jimmy Jordan. He used the name Dale. They went as far as to record an album as "Dale and Grace" in 1998. They also have a ministry under the same name. The real Dale and Grace are still playing music and still touring, though seperately now. They were inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 1997.

Please Refrain From Wiki-theiving

All content herein should be considered to have a Creative-commons-like license with the sole exclusion of Wikipedia. I welcome use of my research by all writers, readers and researchers except those that would publish such information on Wikipedia. Thank you.